This section is intended to provide a background or context to the disclosed embodiments. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Relaying is considered for LTE-Advanced as a tool to improve the coverage of high data rates, group mobility, temporary network deployment, cell-edge throughput and/or to provide coverage to new areas. In relaying, a base station (eNodeB), known as a donor cell, communicates indirectly with a mobile station (user equipment or UE) by way of a wireless connection with a relay node called a relay backhaul channel. The donor cell transmits data and control information for the user equipment over the relay backhaul channel to the relay node. The relay node should be capable of decoding the UE's data and control information and forwarding the data and control information to the UE in a form that the UE recognizes. That is, from the perspective of the UE, the relay node should look like just another base station. The relay node should also be capable of receiving its own data and control information from the donor cell over the backhaul channel without interfering with the UE's data and control information. However, no definitive protocol for a relay backhaul channel has been specified for LTE Advanced.